I’ve probably said enough about how cool Druids are. They can stealth in, fight very well, can tank or dps, both frankly ever since lacerate was able to fitted to the claws, and heal. And buff. And fly. Whew.

So what’s completely different? Playing a Mage and a Paladin both in their 50’s. This ain’t some stealth ranger team, sneak in, accomplish mission, sneak out. This is a squishy and a masher with huge targets bouncing over their heads everywhere they go. That target reads “Attention mobs: Fresh Meat and/or Souls.”

Getting Effilda to 54, where the (rest of the) Plaguelands stuff starts, we finished two quests in Felwood. The Pally Pull, Exorcism, works on demons too and that made life easy. She dinged 54 and went to train and we both flew up to Chillwind Camp.

We did the All Along the Watchtowers quest. It was easy for the most part. The skeletons and ghouls mostly all pullable. The caster skeletons with dark mending were annoying. The searing ghouls, with the fire blast, were downright devastating. I don’t think it was me switching to Retribution from Protection, and I was trying to keep the Fire Protection Aura down, but those flames really hurt. The skeleton guard inside the tower is no longer elite so we took him out too. Death to the Scourge scum.

We cleansed the last two Cauldrons and completed that quest chain. I did die after realizing I couldn’t do anything anymore fighting the key master. (My emergency heal was still on cooldown from a previous life and death emergency.) It seemed the final Cauldron is guarded by mana drainers. Nevertheless, the key was ours and the cauldron cleansed.

We did a couple quests for Chromie there in Andorhol. We zapped the worms in the grain silos and we picked up some pocket watches throughout the ruins. We were asked to do a quest for Chromie where we would pick up some pocket watches throughout the ruins. We did a … (Sneaky bronze dragons always messing with time. … with time.)

And with those “jobs complete” Honorus dinged 56 and Effilda nearly hit 55. (She earned nearly an entire level in just a few short quests? Yep. I like it.)

In other news, Msaker managed to finally get to Gruul’s and Magtheridon’s Lair. Meaning in a week he’d gone through Karazhan (full clear) and the two Lairs. This is the equivalent of having made it through a Molten Core clear. I’m really pleased with that. Nice part is I’m picking up raiding pointers all the time.

Sweeping strikes, for example. Our main tank, now doing crazy dps as an Arms Warrior, uses it a lot. I heard him remark about some hits he was getting, which got me to looking at the tooltip and thinking, “Hmm.” Something to put on the action bar.

There in Magtheridon’s another Arms Warrior, new guy, crazier dps, whispers “As Fury your job is to Sunder.” “Now, okay. Just hold on a second,” I’m thinking to myself. What kind of crazy talk is this? Sunder is for tanks. Sunder is used to grab aggro, generate threat. What was this crazy troll talking about? Sunder. We had a Pally for a Main Tank. Well the tool tip is a little help. I can use it in any stance. Hmm. I’ve got Salv, and my Berserker Stance reduces my threat output. Well, hell, if I didn’t do Sunders who would? I mean, as dual wielding Fury I can lay down Sunders pretty quickly. And Sunder is more than threat generations, it’s an armor reducer. “Thanks for the tip, I never thought of using it outside of tanking.” I whisper back. “It’s a damage buff.” he replies. Then adds “np. :)”

I’ve got a lot to learn, let me tell you.

The old dog, Stormsoul, again met up with the Lady Vashj. After clearing the Cavern earlier in the week we returned and faced off against her. Nobody fails at Phase 1, do they? You’ve got 25 people who need to get her down to 70%. That’s doable. And this time we finally got the Striders on an understanding basis. We know them better, we’ve got our technique getting better, and we started downing them before the next spawned. Early enough, in fact, that we could turn our attention back to the Nagas. And there was some excitement about the generators and locations, and cardinal directions, and numbering them, and, yet, we didn’t one-shot Vashj, and tempers flared. And, and this is why I know Vashj will eventually submit to us, we did get her Phase 3. It was just her, and us, and we got her to 25%. I neglected to mention one more member of the party. The infinity of spore bats flying around us overhead. I say “infinity” since that’s what it looked like with all of them flying over head in a figure 8, and numbering, oh, about an infinities worth. So, Vashj to 25%. Nice.

All in all a great, great week. Flight form on my Druid, a full clear of Tier 4 content with my Warrior, who’s learning stuff still, a solid knock on the last door of Tier 5 content with my Shaman, and rolling some +1 to +2 our level quests in the Plaguelands with my Paladin and my lovely wife.